A Perfect Diamond World
by Solosam
Summary: The year is 1808. A soldier falls in love with Queen Elsa. What will happen when he discovers her taboo love for Anna? The answer involves pirates, pagan gods, and a life-or-death struggle in the polar North.


**Prologue **

Tycho stumbled down the cliff side, dropping the empty musket. He stumbled in the snow, pulled himself up, and limped after them. He was lost in a world of sleet and hail and pain. The swirling wind practically carried him towards the Gate.

"Stop! Wait!" Anna gasped, stepping back. "What is it?"

They stared into a glowing tesseract... a cube made of cubes bounded by cubes, all connected by impossible edges and angles. It existed in more than three dimensions. Time and space were frozen there, folded up and crystallized. It flashed and flickered with colors never seen by mortal eyes. It was light and sound and chaos... until Elsa touched it.

"Don't!" Tycho cried out.

"It's... everything..." Elsa said, staring into the light. "Everything and everywhere." She spun, standing unafraid in the heart of the storm, and reached out to her sister. "We can start over! We can go anywhere... be anything! We... we can be together forever!"

* * *

**A Perfect Diamond World**

* * *

The men had many names for her, and not all were flattering.

The Snow Queen.

The Arctic Witch.

The Draugr's Virgin Bride.

Those were the rude names bandied about in foreign lands by people who had never met her. For Tycho Halvdan, she would always be The Queen of Diamonds. That was the first thing he thought when he saw her, shortly after Arendelle thawed from a tragic and unseasonable winter. She held a ball, bedecked in glittering gems, haloed by bursts of refracted rainbow light. They were not really diamonds, of course... but rather shards of the purest ice held together by nothing but her will.

Loytnant Tycho Halvdan of the Queen's Own Lifejaegercorps danced with Queen Elsa that night. He couldn't claim it was anything special... She dutifully danced with all the unmarried officers. Tycho was certain he was not the only one smitten by her platinum hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was not cold. She laughed. She played coy. She ate lots of chocolate. Her dark eyes hid a sort of mischievous glee. Her transparent crown rested on a peasant's braid.

The dances were over, and Tycho sipped at his cabernet. The Queen politely thanked her guests, doing her best to maintain the illusion of decorum. Her younger sister, the Princess Anna, hovered nearby. She told jokes and made faces... exaggerated, animated, completely letting go of the energy and exuberance Elsa tried to restrain. And at the end of the night they were alone, retiring to the tower while the help cleaned the floors and the guards changed shift.

"Come back to us, Kaptein," the Canon priest whispered.

Tycho did not startle. He just set down his crystal glass and tugged at his handlebar moustache. But the creeping blush betrayed his embarrassment at being caught daydreaming.

Yngval was one of the Sami, the old-blood natives. His family had been among the first to convert to Lutheranism, and had acted servants and confessors to the Kings and Queens of Arendelle since the days of the bloody-minded Sverdadel nobility. But this was the age of the Kjoleadel, where the firelock was replacing the sword and the pen was considered mightier than both.

"Who caught your eye tonight?" the priest asked.

"I was thinking of the Queen," Tycho confessed.

Canon Yngval smiled. It was the kind of patronizing smile that said, 'Oh my poor boy, you know not what you do...'

"What? Don't give me that look, I know I haven't got a chance."

"I'm glad you admit it. You aren't her type."

"She's never taken a suitor," Tycho said, "Most people never even saw her before Coronation Day. How do you know what her type is?"

"Just trust me son," Yngval repeated, "You're _not_ her type."

* * *

That was one year ago.

Kaptein Tycho Halvdan stood at ease in the chill autumn wind. He was thankful for his green wool jacket and oversized czapka cap. Twelve hand-picked Lifejaegers stood behind him, each one holding an M1807-pattern flintlock rifle. Like their Kaptein, they were each wrapped in warm green wool and a ludicrous leather hat. Tall black boots were polished to a mirror shine. Brass buckles and buttons gleamed in the dim sunlight. A lightweight cavalryman's cutlass hung at Tycho's hip. As soon as they weighed anchor, they would throw on their greatcoats to shield them from the chill of the North Atlantic.

They stood at the pier in front of the _Isbre,_ a Third-Rate ship carrying sixty-four guns on two decks, with a crew of three hundred sailors plus twenty-five marines, and the thirteen riflemen who served as the Queen's personal guard. It was a small and under-crewed ship of the line. No one would ever accuse Arendelle of being a great naval power. _Isbre_ was barely half the size of the greatest four-deck British monsters. A trumpet sounded in the distance, and three hundred thirty-eight men snapped to attention.

The Queen approached. Elsa, the Queen of Diamonds. She was beautiful and graceful. Princess Anna followed her, wrapped in a blanket and knit cap, but Elsa was dressed like she expected a glorious summer day. Her thin silks snapped in the cold wind. Waves crashed against the rocks, throwing a freezing salt spray into the air. Elsa didn't seem to notice.

"Your majesty," the ship's master said with a bow. He offered the Queen his cape, but she just smiled and declined. Flaggkommander Waage looked heartbroken.

"It's okay," Anna apologized, "The cold never bothered her."

Elsa looked up at the sprawling sails with something resembling trepidation. Maybe even fear. She stood stock-still for a moment, and her lip trembled. Surely not, Tycho thought to himself. How could she, Mistress of Wind and Sky, be afraid of getting on a boat? Nobody thought sailing was fun, but still...

"It's okay," Anna whispered, slipping a hand around her sister's hips. Tycho realized he was probably the only person close enough to hear them speak. "You can stay in your room if you want. I'll be there for you."

Elsa gave her sister and imploring look. "It's not that. It's just that I'm going to have a... _husband_."

Tycho, still standing at attention, felt an unexpectedly strong pang of jealousy.

"It'll be okay. We'll just stuff more chocolate in our faces until we feel better. It works every time. Kaptein!"

For a brief second, Tycho didn't realize she was speaking to him. "Your Highness," he replied.

"We need chocolate! And lots of it."

"Your highness," Canon Yngval interrupted. "This is a Lifejaegercorps Officer. Fetching chocolate is not the best use of his time."

"Well, frick," Anna said, "Okay, so who in the Arendelle Navy is responsible for chocolate? We need a Subaltern Oberstkommander of Chocolate... or whatever."

"Anna, let it go," Elsa said.

A servant stuffed a box into Tycho's hand. He quickly handed it to the princess.

"Victory! Can't go on a trip without chocolate."

Several seamen snickered. Only royalty would expect confections at sea.

Elsa smiled, and her gaze softened.

The wind abruptly died.

They shared a chocolate, and then Elsa looked back to the ship.

A chill wind cut straight through Tycho's coat and stung his cheeks.

Anna hugged her sister, whispered something in her ear, and mouthed, "Thank you," to Tycho. They moved on, walking up the ramp and boarding the boat that would carry the Queen to her fate.

"She's so hot," a rifleman said.

"Which one?" asked another.

"Anna."

Tycho was about to raise his voice to the man, but Yngval, ever watchful, beat him to it.

"Keep it to yourself, jaeger. You're _not_ her type."

That puzzled Tycho. He recalled Yngval saying much the same thing one year ago, but did not remember it until just now.

* * *

They sailed from Arendelle for Iceland. For the first hour, Queen Elsa stood on the Quarterdeck. She loosened her braid and let it dance in the arctic gale that swept up behind us. It filled the sails and carried the ship like a bird on the wind; an unnatural speed that mocked the Gods of sea and storm. Snowflakes danced like diamond fireflies.

Mistress of Wind and Sky indeed.

Sailors huddled and shivered. Some whispered about her witchcraft. Tycho just stuck his hands in his greatcoat and stared. She was magnificent.

Pushing beyond the sight of land, Flaggkommander Waage grew increasingly agitated and protested that she was about to shear the sails from their gaskets. Tired and slightly embarrassed, the Queen retired to her quarters. That left the three hundred men on deck to go about their duties. A third took shelter on the second gun deck, where they expected to sleep until late in the afternoon that they would be fresh for the night's shift. A third went about the business of tending the ship and standing watch, while the remainder scratched and scrubbed and swabbed every conceivable surface.

It was fair to say that Tycho had no idea what was going on. None of the riflemen nor the marines had any real role to play in the running of the ship, although some of them had enough interest to pester the seamen and ask questions of them. Mostly they camped out on deck and watched. Soon enough the skipper would institute gunnery practice, after they had drained a few barrels. They would drill to repel boarders. At some point the marines, either out of boredom or necessity, would take turns swabbing the decks. The riflemen would not. They were the Queen's personal Lifejaegers, and as such were exempted from any duties not directly related to defending Her Majesty's person.

Apparently, this is did not extend to fetching chocolate.

"So what's a jaeger?" Anna asked.

Tycho hadn't realized he was being watched. He leapt to his feet, and bowed, "Your High-"

"Yeahyeah, skip that part," the princess said with a wave of her hand. "You're the chocolate guy, right? I've seen you around the palace. Halvdan, right? What's a jaeger? And why do you wear green when the marines wear red?"

"I'm a rifleman," Tycho said. When Anna's expression did not change, he understood that she didn't.

"The marines are infantry who put to sea. Their main job is to guard the boat. They're armed with muskets... smoothbore guns that are quicker to load but harder to shoot. Jaegers carry rifles. The bore has a spiral groove that-"

"Cool. Guns. Got it."

"Well, that's not all," Tycho continued. "The infantryman stands in mass formation to fire platoon volleys, quick as they can. Riflemen aren't expected to do that. We fight as skirmishers, moving about the battlefield on our own initiative."

"Huh. Okay. So being allowed to do your own thing is kind of a privilege?"

"Jaegers are usually chosen men. We're supposed to pick and shoot our own targets, with accuracy, and without a Sersjent barking orders. There are one hundred detailed to the Queen's castle itself."

Anna looked away and watched the horizon for a moment. Tycho found this awkward. He was not accustomed to speaking to royalty. Or beautiful women, for that matter.

"So how does someone get to be the Queen's Own Lifejaeger?" she finally asked.

Tycho glanced about, uncomfortably. He knew Anna was a bit of a chatterbox... From what he had picked up, she led a bit of a sheltered life. But he wondered why he was suddenly the object of her attention.

"Well," he forced himself to continue, "My father was a gunsmith. He was successful, I suppose, but still had to go into debt to buy my commission."

This obviously confused her.

"Wait, whoa, you have to pay for the joy of being in the army? That's kind of messed up."

Tycho scratched his head. He never expected her to know the minutiae of firelocks and uniforms, but this was a question that cut to the core of how the army... and the upper classes... functioned. What noble young lady made it to her majority without understanding the Queen's commission? Most ladies considered this critical information for picking the correct husband. What happened to this girl that kept her isolated from all society?

He took a deep breath.

"It's not so much a purchase as a deposit, or a surety bond. The money I pay for my commission is mine when I resign, so that's the core of my retirement fund. If I were to be cashiered for misconduct, God forbid, the deposit would be forfeit to the crown. It's kind of the army's way of making sure its officers mind their manners."

"You danced with Elsa at the ball last year," taking a conversational segway.

"You remember that?"

Anna shrugged. "Your moustache was shorter then."

Tycho was actually kind of flattered.

"I heard you talking to Her Majesty," he said. "She's going to be married?"

The Princess abruptly frowned. For some reason, Tycho was suddenly very aware of the white streak running through her braids.

"Yes."

"I'm... sorry?" Tycho said. He didn't think the wedding of a young Queen was something to be put off about. "Are you, um, jealous?"

"Pffft. No. She's going to go meet some Icelandic duke with no family, land, or sheep."

"That doesn't make sense. Arendelle's not wealthy, but it's not exactly poor, and Her Majesty is... well... she's gorgeous."

This raised an eyebrow.

"She deserves the King of England."

"The King of England is insane."

"Well, not literally the King," Tycho said. "I just mean someone with that kind of wealth and status."

"Elsa doesn't care about that kind of stuff," Anna said. "I'm not sure anyone does nowadays. Did you ever hear of that one princess in Prussia? She was missing for eighteen years and showed back up with a husband already picked out. And he was a criminal."

"No, I didn't hear about that."

Anna shrugged again. "She doesn't want to marry someone rich. But she has to marry someone. The people expect it. Arendelle needs an heir. And King Frederick has sent some upsetting letters."

The pieces came together in Tycho's mind. King Frederick VI was sovereign of both Norway and Denmark. He had recently suffered a bruising defeat at the hands of the British, and was still humiliated. Bringing a third nation into his Scandinavian empire would be an easy way to balm his wounded pride.

"And I'm kind of tired of talking about this," Anna said. "I hope you have fun sailor-ing or rifle-manning or whatever you do."

She turned away.

A thought struck Tycho. It was a little audacious. A little inappropriate, maybe. It made his heart race. It was time to take a risk. It was not something he enjoyed. Tycho liked stable. Predictable. But he wasn't going to be a rifleman for the rest of his life. He had to gamble. If he won, he might win big. If he lost, he would get slapped at a minimum... put in stocks and sent back to the infantry, more likely...

"Your Highness," he called.

Anna looked back.

He lost his nerve. He hedged his bet.

"Yngval once told me I wasn't the Queen's type. What do you think he meant by that?"

Her eyes suddenly went wide. "You... you're just not. Sorry. Goodbye."

Kaptein Tycho Halvdan of the Queen's Own Lifejaegercorps suspected he had made a mistake.

* * *

He didn't sleep that night.

For a long time he wondered if he had ruined his career by hinting that he was smitten with Her Majesty. That was a stupid thing to do. It gave him a sinking feeling in his gut. He needed predictability. March about a few more years... Find a nice young lady with a few acres of land... Use her dowry to buy a Major's commission... Get out and give the money to their children so they could be nice young officers. Hopefully Cavalrymen, so they wouldn't have to do so much marching about.

Predictable. Stable. Mediocre.

But drop the Queen's sister a hint you wouldn't mind rogering her...

Pffft.

One ticket to the line infantry. Be marching about Denmark, guarding it from Britain. In winter.

Tycho checked on the two men he had posted at the Queen's quarters, before turning in. He despondently wondered what they were supposed to accomplish besides standing about and looking pretty. There were already two dozen marines on board who would fight to the death for the right to stand outside her bedchamber.

The second deck was the primary bunk space for sailors and soldiers alike. Mostly they hung in net hammocks and hoped for eight hours with no alarms or storms. It already smelled like man-feet in here. He shuddered to imagine what it would smell of in two weeks time. The worst part, as far as Tycho was concerned, was that he had to grope his way about in the dark. At one point his sword struck a cannon with an unpleasant clang. A handful of sailors grumbled at him.

"Hey," a voice whispered in the dark.

Tycho turned towards the sound. The ports were shuttered against the cold wind and spray. There was almost no light to see by. He could barely make out the twinkle of starlight reflected in the seaman's eyes.

"Bad luck bringing a woman on board. Double bad luck bringing two. Triple bad luck, one of them's a witch. The Draugr's Virgin Bride, aye? She's a pretty one."

Tycho rested his hand on his pistol. "Best check your mouth, seaman. Speak ill of her again, even in your dreams, I'll have you lashed to death."

"Beg your pardon, master, beg your pardon," the voice said. The twinkles vanished into the darkness.

The jaeger Kaptein stood, defiant, a moment longer. He just stared into the void. The pose was more for show than anything else... he'd have gladly put the seaman to the lash for speaking his wicked tongue, if he had even the slightest clue which of the three hundred men it was. After another long minute, he went on his way, turning down a hall and groping about for a hooded lantern.

As an officer, Tycho was authorized a private berth. It was the size of a closet, barely large enough for him to lie down in. A few blankets constituted a bed. It stank of mold and saltwater. He had slept in worse. Laying down uncomfortably, pulling his green jaeger's coat over himself, he tried to sleep. And failed.

He could hear Anna's voice. Somewhere in the darkness. She was upset.

It took him a moment to realize he wasn't hearing things. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The Queen's quarters must have been directly above his berth. He could hear Queen Elsa speaking now... just loud enough to be heard but not so loud as he could hear what they were saying. But they were arguing. The name "Yngval" came up more than once. They were angry that Yngval was spreading rumors, he supposed.

For a long time there was silence. Then Elsa's voice again.

Gasping.

Moaning.

Pleading.

Tycho was shamed, thrilled, and jealous all at once...

He was listening to the Queen make love.

She was trying not to cry out. But she was failing.

He turned himself over and pulled his pillow over his head. Jealous anger burned in chest.

He listened to Her Majesty find her climax.

He did not sleep.

* * *

They sailed on.

He also questioned the riflemen on duty. They swore they had seen no one come or go from the Queen's Quarters at night, save the Princess. Certainly no gentlemen callers. Tycho quizzed them on whether they heard anything strange. They denied it. After a bit of prodding, they admitted to playing dice with the marines, but maintained they stayed at their post and admitted no one at all.

Gambling at one's post was an unpleasant breach of discipline, and merited lashes for all involved. Tycho was angry. The jaegers were chosen men. They weren't supposed to be distracted by foolish things. They had weeks to play dice all day, and lose, as far as Tycho cared, so long as they stayed alert at their posts. Still, when Tycho asked around all parties swore the jaegers were camped directly outside Her Majesty's door. And for that he limited their punishment to five lashes each.

Kaptein Tycho Halvdan, as an officer, would not administer the blows himself. The marine's Sersgent saw to that. It was doubly shameful for an elite jaeger to be punished by a common marine. But it was over quickly enough. They marched the men out to the mast, shackled them up for five good strokes each, and sent them on their way. The whole crew gathered to watch. Spectators were mandatory. Tycho stood on the deck, while the First Officer read some spiel about indiscipline and how they were being punished in the name of the Queen. Canon Yngval preached about the evils of dice. Another day in the army.

For no reason he would care to admit, Tycho looked to the quarterdeck. Her Majesty stood in the cold wind, wrapped in nothing but a thin silk dress. The Princess Anna stood at her side, shivering in a fur coat. For a brief moment his eyes met Elsa's. The Queen of Diamonds, his distant love, Mistress of Wind and Sky, looked down on him with disapproval. Then the first slap of leather on back split the silence, and Tycho turned his attention back to the discipline.

None of the men screamed. They took their lashes like good soldiers, and after a quick dressing by the ship's surgeon, they limped off to gingerly lick their wounds.

"Is this what soldiers call justice?" Elsa called down to him.

"Your Majesty," Tycho said with a bow, "If we were British they'd have been whipped to death."

A few seamen exchanged troubled glances. The jaeger Kaptein's tone came dangerously close to insubordination.

"Careful son" Yngval whispered. "Or they might not be the only ones."

Elsa looked down on him for another painful moment, before retreating to her quarters.

It was snowing. Tycho touched a railing. It, and every other horizontal surface on the ship, was covered with a layer of ice.

"Don't mind it," Yngval said. "The temperature changes with her mood."

"And I thought the castle was just drafty."

"Tell me, was that necessary?"

"The Queen had a visitor last night," Tycho explained. "The guards were distracted and didn't notice. Or they did notice and lied to me. Either way..."

"Oh dear," the priest said, sarcastically. "That is troubling. You mean to say she's taken a lover? On this ship?"

"That's not yours to know," Tycho said. "And neither is it mine, I suppose. But it's my duty to keep the men in line and mete out punishment."

"…in her Majesty's name."

"As you say."

* * *

The day passed slowly. The sky was dark and cold. Tycho did not see either of the royal sisters that day. He spent much time reconciling himself to the fact that he would probably be banished to Denmark, if only for meddling uncomfortably in the Queen's business.

She used to be fun, he thought. Joyful. Happy just to be alive, never mind wealthy and beautiful and adored by all. Elsa and Anna were a source of infectious delight...

Elsa and Anna.

A strange thought crossed Tycho's mind.

* * *

"ICE!" someone screamed in the dark. A bell began to clang. Men shouted and hollered. For a moment Tycho did not know where he was. He panicked in the darkness, groping about for a wall by which he could orient himself. People were shouting and yelling and they wouldn't stop clanging the damned bell. He struggled to pull on his boots in the dark, and burst out into the hall way to find madness and chaos. Men scrambled in every conceivable direction. They carried axes and poles and lengths of rope. Hooded lanterns flashed and flickered in the dark.

"ICE!" voices shouted again. A dozen men, screaming all in unison...

A sudden lurch threw Tycho against the bulkhead. Colors flashed in front of his eyes. He heard gunshots... No, not gunshots... the crack of splitting timbers. The ship had struck something in the dark. Men shoved him to the floor as they rushed through the halls, surging as a mob towards the damaged bow.

"Sir!" a jaeger shouted, clutching a lantern.

"We're struck," Tycho said. He struggled to find his balance. Something warm and coppery dripped down his face. "Get to the Queen."

"We're sinking!" someone shouted.

"Stow that!" the boatswain shouted back.

On deck, Tycho fought his way to the railing and peered over the edge. He saw nothing, but felt the shudder as something below the waterline ground against the starboard hull. He was too far aft to see the impact, but the sound of groaning wood and screaming men told him enough. Taking the stairs two at a time to the quarterdeck, he found Queen Elsa in her night robe.

"Halvdan, are we really sinking?" she asked.

"I don't know," Tycho said. "Probably."

Elsa said nothing, but strode right past him. He followed her to the prow, noticing that the ship was taking on an unpleasant list. The Queen found Waage at the top of a flight of stairs, gesticulating wildly and shouting orders. Deep in the hold, they could hear screaming men and rushing water. She abruptly seized him.

"Get everyone on deck!"

"Let them try to fix it!" Waas shouted back.

"GET! THEM! ON! DECK!" she screamed.

There was much shouting and cajoling. Many men believed that to abandon repairs was to abandon ship... much to their relief. Dozens of wet, bleeding, sorry men climbed out of the hold. The great majority immediately fled to the boats.

"We need to go!" Tycho shouted, but Elsa ignored him. He reached out to seize her, but a hand touched his arm. Anna stood behind him, and shook her head.

First, there was a cold wind.

Then came the snowflakes.

Anna, Tycho, and Waas ducked and held each other as a furious arctic gale descended upon the ship. It was so bitterly cold... it stung their hands and ears. Ocean spray turned into shards of ice in mid-air. It was a hurricane of ice and wind and pain.

"Let it go," Anna whispered.

The ship lurched upwards.

Tycho struggled to open his eyes, and saw Elsa standing alone in the middle of the storm. Her platinum hair whipped around her. Frost exploded in fractal patterns across the pale skin of her bare legs. She raised a hand, clenched her fist, and it all stopped.

"We're safe," the queen said.

Tycho helped Anna to her feet. They stared at the frozen world she had created. Pillars wrought from transparent ice arched over the ship. Sea ice stained blue-green extended from the ship fifty meters in each direction. Shimmering auroras danced in the sky. Below deck, the sea ice was frozen solid. The sea spilling through the hull looked like glass twisted into a waterfall. It had been stopped in an instant, magical ice capturing the roaring flood in time.

"This is unreal," Tycho said, touching the ice experimentally. When someone shown a lantern on it, he could see a fish trapped inside.

Anna gave her sister and enthusiastic hug and a kiss on the cheek. "This is wonderful! Now what?"

"I can summon a wind and float us home. We won't move as fast, but we've got plenty of food, don't we?"

Flagkommander Waas looked dumbfounded. He stared at the arctic sculptures around him. "Yes," he mumbled, "Plenty of food."

The hull let out one more long groan as the ship settled on the ice.

"Unreal."

* * *

That morning, Tycho saw the world with fresh eyes. The _Isbre_, with all three hundred men on board, did not rest in the water. Rather, the entire hull was lifted out and rested atop a giant, sparkling snowflake. He did not see any of the hazardous icebergs of the sort that punctured the hull. He was tired, and he needed a drink, but there was no liquid water to be found. His canteen was still frozen solid. Some night shift seamen had taken to thawing pots of ice over a stove. He gratefully sipped some hot water, then sat for a while and started at the magnificent world of ice the Queen had created for them. Billowing clouds of steam rose off the mug.

"What comes now?" Flagkommander Waas asked.

Tycho turned and raised an eyebrow. "You're the skipper."

"The skipper of a boat. Not a drifting iceberg."

"Last night Elsa... Her Majesty... mentioned magicking up a breeze for us. Has she not done that yet?"

"I don't know. I see wind in the sails, but we're not making much progress. And the rudder was sheared clean off."

"That's not right," Tycho said. He was not a sailor, but the idea of an iceberg striking the bow and also damaging the aft rudder struck him as quite odd.

"Good sir," Waas said, hat in hand, "Nothing about this situation is 'right.' Would you mind speaking to Her Majesty about it?"

In other words, he was too scared to talk to the Witch who had ensorcelled his sinking boat.

Tycho left him behind, making his way across the uncomfortably diagonal deck to the very fore. Elsa sat alone on the prow, staring into the sunrise. She was draped in shimmering blue fabric, patterned with striking geometric snowflake shapes. It was a dress made of pure frost, a provocative slit revealing one pale leg. Crystals formed blossoming flower shapes on her neck. A shard of ice hovered in-mid air just a few inches above her palm.

She was, in a word, heartbreakingly beautiful.

"Your Majesty," Tycho said with a bow.

"Tycho Halvdan," the Queen replied, unexpectedly smiling. "Funny, I never even bothered to learn your name until you gave us a box of chocolates. You were always just one of those men in green parading back and forth."

"I like to think I did more than that, ma'am."

"Stop," she said. "Just call me Elsa. Here, at least."

"That's frightfully undisciplined."

"Shocking," she said with a smile. "I know."

"May I ask what that is?"

"Oh this?" The shard of floating ice slowly rotated on its axis. "I've been experimenting. Ice usually forms in a hexagonal shape... like snowflakes or a honeycomb. If you could see the very tiniest bits of it clinging together in the core, they would all keep that honeycomb shape."

"I see."

"But if you squeeze it harder, you can force the bits into a new organization. First it becomes cubic... then like a cylinder.. then prismic." As she explained, the shard became transparent to the point of being invisible. "The tightest I've been able to make it involves a sort of zig-zag shape. And the ice is hard as metal."

Tycho politely stared at the shard for a moment. "I suppose I'll have to take your word for it."

"I wish everyone could see it like I do. Every snowflake is just exploding with rainbow light. The densest, most ordered ice reflects colors I'm pretty sure no human eye has seen before."

"Okay..." Tycho said. "Can you make... um... disorganized ice?"

Elsa smiled again. "I'm working on that. It looks like pancakes made of glass."

He truly did not understand. So he changed the subject.

"Where is Her Highness?"

"Anna? Looking for chocolate. Where else? You never pointed out the Subaltern Quartermaster Chocolate Supply guy."

"That's funny."

The ice shard abruptly burst into steam and vanished.

"No, it's not," Elsa said. He looked into those blue eyes that could see into his soul. "The sailors are wondering if we're going to live or die. You're the first one that's been brave enough to talk to me."

"I always thought you enjoyed being alone."

"Please," she said. "Nobody enjoys being alone." She took a deep breath. "And I don't want you to hate me."

"I don't-"

"Stop. What were the names of the men you had flogged?"

"Kettil and Holger. I don't know the marines."

"You enforce the rules. That's what soldiers do. I understand."

"I'm sorry," Tycho said. "I don't get where this is going."

"I was upset when I saw it, that's all. You were kind of a jerk. But my childhood was... unhappy. I didn't understand..." She gestured at the vast ice sculpture that kept the ship afloat. "This. I wanted to hide. I felt guilty. Now I don't like seeing any kind of punishment. It makes me cringe. I remember being five years old and feeling... like I was being punished."

There passed a long silence, in which Tycho didn't know what to say.

"You are so uptight, you know that? You need to learn to let go."

Tycho shrugged. "I'm still wondering about the whole are-we-going-to-live-or-die-thing."

"Fine," Elsa said, taking a deep breath.

Tycho wondered if he said something stupid again.

A breeze suddenly picked up. The Queen's frost-gossamer dress billowed out around her. Tycho's teeth started to chatter. The wind caught the sails, and the boat slowly began to turn.

"I'll need a navigator to help me. But for now I'll just take us east."

"That's good. I'd like to see land."

"You're welcome, Kaptein."

Tycho stood, and saw Anna approach. She held a steaming stein in each hand.

"Coffee, Your Highness?"

"Pffft. Hot cocoa. I made you one."

"Thank you," Tycho said. He looked at the mug and let it slosh back and forth a little. It appeared dense to the point of being pure liquid chocolate.

"How is she?"

"We talked a little. She showed me some kind of ice that was, I don't know, more organized ice? I didn't really understand it. Then she got mad at me."

"What did you say?" Anna asked. She blew on her stein.

"She told me about her childhood. And then she told me I was up-tight. And then I asked her if she could get the boat moving and she got mad at me."

"Wow," Anna said. "Men are idiots."

"What?"

"I bet you were all, 'This boat better make five – point – six knots at ninety-whatever-degrees to starboard.' Do you get that this is, like, the only time she feels free? When she gets to do stuff like this? And she opened up to you and you blew her off? It's no wonder all you think about is guns."

"I thought I wasn't her type."

"You're not," Anna said, with a mischievous smile. "But she wants a friend sometimes. And not one she makes herself."

"I see." He had always wondered what the little talking snowman was about.

* * *

That night, Tycho lay awake inside his berth. He was listening to the Queen make love to her mysterious suitor. He listened to her gasp and moan through the bulkhead. If anyone else could hear her, they were keeping it to themselves. Tycho tried not to imagine himself with her, wrapped up in her frost-gossamer dress, making her cry out in the dark. He tried not to imagine her perfect, pale legs and the tight crease where they met her round buttock. And he failed.

Listening to the woman you adore make love to another man is a unique and especially brutal form of torture.

Tycho decided he would not be a masochist. He rose, pulled on his boots, jacket, and greatcoat, and stumbled out into the dark hold. The deck was quiet. There was a slight breeze in the air. The sails hung slack. The wheel was unmanned... with no rudder to control there was no point in it. A sailor dumped ice water on the deck and began to swab it lazily with his mop.

"It's not as cold as I expected," a marine said. He sat on the quarterdeck, not even bothering to wear a coat.

"You look familiar."

"Visekorporal Henning. You had the man put five strokes across my back."

"I won't apologize for that, korporal."

"Don't expect you to, sir. Officers never get flogged, do they?"

"Stow it," Tycho said. "You'll be back on guard or we'll repeat the exercise."

The man sighed, and stood to attention. Pitiful, Tycho thought as he turned away. Undisciplined. And...

"Wait," he said. "You've been on the quarterdeck all night?"

"Aye, sir."

"Have you seen anyone enter the senior officer's quarters?"

"Not a one."

"I see. Carry on."

"Aye, sir," the marine said glumly.

It was at that moment the ice cracked.

The ship floated lazily atop a giant magic snowflake. And entire fractal branch of snowflake cracked and broke off of the body. The entire ship groaned and listed as their ice floe redistributed its weight. There was a moment of sheer terror where details suddenly struck him clear as day. There was no wind. It was a warm night. Whatever was happening here, the magic that kept their ice together was failing.

"Get the Queen!" Tycho shouted, running for the senior officer's quarters. He threw open the door, rushed past his jaeger guards, and burst into the Queen's Quarters. "Your Majesty!" he shouted, looking about in a panic. "The ice! It's-"

It was at that moment, opening the interior door, that Tycho Halvdan looked on the most obscenely erotic sight ever had or ever would see.

The Princess Anna knelt over her sister, the Queen of Arendelle. Long red hair fell around Elsa's face. They were locked in a deep, passionate kiss. Naked breasts touched. Elsa's hand was digging deep in her sister's cleft. They were gasping, sweating, groping... seized in a grip of white-hot lust that practically radiated off their bodies. The room stank of wet sex.

Anna looked up. Elsa clamped a hand over her mouth before she could scream.

"Shhhh..." she whispered, staring into her sister's eyes.

Anna slowly nodded.

"Kaptein Halvdan," the Queen said. She did not move, not even to hide her nakedness.

"The ice..." he said stupidly. Hearing footsteps behind him, he quickly slammed the door. "It's breaking."

Elsa leapt out of bed. She did not dress. Rather, sheets of snowflakes simply appeared and clung to her body. Tycho could not pinpoint at what point she was clothed in a garment of frost. One moment she wasn't, the next she was. Elsa pushed past him, and strode out onto the quarterdeck.

Tycho and Anna looked at each other.

"Hide me," she hissed, and threw herself under the covers.

"Umm..."

"Sir?" a rifleman asked.

"It's fine," he said. "I'm sure the Queen will fix it. Come along."

He closed the door, and left Anna alone.

* * *

"We have a problem," Elsa said.

Tycho sighed, and stared at his cup of hot and particularly dense chocolate. He looked out the rear window at the blank nothingness of open ocean. They were once again on their way east. The aft window faced away from the rising sun. It was at that particular moment that Tycho realized how very little he had slept in the last three days... four? He wasn't even sure anymore. That fact notwithstanding, this must have been counted as one of the shortest voyages in the history of the Arendelle navy.

"There's no problem, Your Majesty" he said. "The Flagkommander says we're moving at quarter speed. But since we were making almost double speed sailing west, it should take..."

"Dammit Tycho!" the Queen shouted

At that moment, his hot chocolate turned to solid ice.

"We have an 'us' problem."

"I wish you'd take this seriously," Anna said. Her face was buried in her arms on the table. The irony did not go unnoticed.

Tycho kept staring out the window.

"What you saw..."

"I didn't see anything," he said. "What's your business is your business."

"Now we're getting somewhere," Anna said without lifting her head.

"Things make more sense now," Tycho said. "You sail to Iceland, of all places, find some poor noble nobody to marry you... Arendelle gets a king. People quit wondering when their Virgin Queen will produce an heir, and why she never takes a suitor."

"Yes," Elsa said.

"Why did the ice floe start to break?"

"Love undoes the spell. I lost control."

"Love," Tycho said to himself. "Who else knows?"

"The confessor. Yngval."

"He's bad at keeping secrets."

"We know."

Tycho turned his frozen cup upside down. Shook it a little. Frowned.

"Tycho?" Elsa began.

He closed his eyes. There was a time he would have given anything to hear her say his name.

"What are you thinking?"

"I feel a little sick."

"Pffft," Anna said.

"Tycho, please understand. I've been ashamed of myself for my entire life. I grew up hiding in my room. And after me and Anna... found each other... I had to keep hiding. I'm so tired of it."

"Fine. I'll keep your secret."

"She wants you to say you understand her, jerk!"

"Anna, please..."

"I'm the only one that understands you, Elsa! I told you nobody else would get it! Why can't we just run away and be together somewhere far away? We'll tell everyone we're going to visit Rapunzel, and then-"

"We can't run away, Anna!"

"Why not?"

"Because I already tried that once, remember?"

Tycho set his cup on the table. "And how did you expect to keep up the deception with a husband? And how long before people start expecting Anna to marry? They'll expect her to find a foreign prince and go away somewhere."

"We know. We won't be able to be... together... as often as before," Elsa said, gripping Anna's hand. "But that's how it has to be. Please don't tell anyone."

"Send me to Denmark."

"What? Why?"

"Make me a Major and send me to Denmark. Tell everyone I've been given a regiment. The Norske Light Battalion is in Copenhagen with some militia and local units."

"Is that supposed to be blackmail?" Anna asked.

"No, it's just a plausible reason to get me far away from Arendelle so I never have to look at either of you again."

Elsa suddenly sobbed and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"It's okay, Elsa," Anna said, holding her sister tight. "He just doesn't understand."

Tycho picked up his jacket and marched out of the room.

As he closed the door, he heard Anna singing a song about a snowman.

Stepping onto the quarterdeck, he looked to the horizon, and saw the pirate ship.

* * *

"Privateers," Flagkommander Waas explained. "Coming right at us."

"You've got to be kidding me," Tycho said. He hastily threw his cartridge box over his shoulder and took a rifle. He pulled the lock to the half-cocked position and bit open a paper cartridge wrapper. The black powder was terribly bitter on his tongue. It was the first step in the laborious process of loading his rifle.

"I am not. They're coming right at us." For a long moment he studied the vessel through a spyglass. "I see two masts. One gun deck. Looks like half our tonnage. Probably half our crew, as well. Any other day they'd be running from us."

"But we have no rudder," Tycho observed, ramming a ball and wadding down the barrel. The necessity for the ball to grip the twisting lands inside the barrel required tighter tolerances than a smooth-barreled musket and slowed the entire process. This was the main reason riflemen were considered specialists.

"And we're floating on a giant goddamned snowflake. They can circle and rake us all day long."

Raking being the technical term for firing a broadside down the length of a vessel, such that the cannonballs tore through the entire thing from stem to stern. It was not generally considered a desirable outcome.

"What can we do?"

"Nothing."

"No. I don't buy that."

"You have any ideas? You want the Draugr's Frozen Bride to magic up a blizzard? Or a hurricane?"

"Your sword, sir," a marine offered. Visekorporal Henning. Again.

"Thank you," Tycho said, fixing his cutlass to his belt and wrapping a gold sash around his waist.

"You know, sir, I'm sure I'd be able to fight much better if I didn't have weeping wounds on me back."

"Korporal Henning?"

"Aye, sir?"

"If we survive this, I'm going to butt-stroke the teeth out of your insubordinate head."

Three hundred thirty-seven men crouched at their guns. The ship's master stood alone on the poop deck. Two – thirds of the crew were detailed to man the _Isbre's_ sixty-four cannons. The remaining hundred crouched behind bulkhead and deck rails, clutching their rifles and muskets. Twenty-five red coat marines moved among the mass of seamen. Once the shooting began, they would be the only ones Tycho could count on being able to load and fire with any regularity. He had detailed half his jaeger riflemen to escort the royalty to the lower decks. The remaining six took up positions in the rigging and crow's nests. From these vantage points they would hope to take aim at enemy officers. They occasionally tossed buckets of water on the sails to prevent their catching fire. Tycho himself crouched less than three meters from Flagkommander Waas. He held his rifle, two loaded pistols, and a sword on his hip.

Their tiny floating world was very quiet.

As predicted, the pirate vessel drifted aft of the _Isbre_. They floated past, pointing and jeering but not firing, yet. Rather than continue to drift into the path of the _Isbre_'s guns, the pirates turned about and kept their broadside trained on her vulnerable stern.

"Kaptein Halvdan," Waas said.

"Aye?"

"Where is Her Majesty?"

"Deepest part of the hold."

"Do you think she would be willing to help us with our problem?"

"I can't let her up here."

The priest Yngval scoffed. "Queen Elsa could crush the pirates with a glacier. Or impale them all on spears of ice. You'd be a fool to try to fight them without her magic."

"As though he could keep me from it!" Elsa shouted, emerging onto the poop deck. She took her place next to Waas, gossamer dress dancing in the arctic wind. "Kaptein."

"Your Majesty," Tycho said, still crouched behind the bulkhead.

"Hi," Anna said, tentatively waving a mittened hand. "Hi. Hi. Nice guns, everybody."

"What should I do?" Elsa asked.

"A wall of ice between us and them would be helpful," Waas explained. "If they don't retreat at the sight of it, they will be driven one way or the other into the arc of our guns. Assuming, of course, Your Majesty doesn't simply turn their boat to ice."

"I would, but it looks like they want to talk."

Indeed, a pirate standing on the adversary's quarterdeck was waving a flag. "Ahoy!" he called.

Tycho's English was imperfect, but he understood enough to comprehend the exchange.

"Ahoy yourself," Elsa shouted back.

"Having some trouble?"

"None at all," she said, defiantly.

"I wouldn't be so sure!"

At that moment there was a sharp click and the muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of her skull. Waas. Tycho instantly spun and pressed his rifle against the Flagkommander's head. "Stand down, man."

"I wouldn't," Visekorporal Henning said, leveling his own musket at Princess Anna.

"There are half a dozen rifles trained on your skulls. And my men don't miss often."

Waas sighed. "I'm not sure you want to take that risk. And by the way, Your Majesty, if I see even a single snowflake we will witness a disturbing amount of violence."

"Stand down, Tycho," Elsa whispered.

"Not sure I want to do that," he protested.

"But you will. There are three hundred men on this boat, and if he shoots me they all drown."

"There are three hundred men who will kill Waas before they let you leave this ship."

"I think they will cooperate," Yngval said.

"You?" Anna spat.

"Please," the priest said. "I just want to avoid bloodshed. I think we can all survive this."

Then, Yngval whispered something to Elsa.

Something about telling unpleasant secrets.

* * *

Elsa, Anna, and Tycho sat together in a dinghy halfway between the _Isbre_ and the pirate vessel. A pair of pirates labored at the oars. The former Flagkommander sat in the prow, still jealously clutching his pistol. The former marine Henning sat in the stern. They were now within a few dozen meters of their new prison.

"You didn't need to bring him," Elsa said, glancing at the disarmed jaeger.

"I think we did," Waas said. "More hostages means more leverage."

"You already have Anna."

"Yes, and if we shoot her we'll have no more hostages at all."

"I don't care about him."

"Oh, in that, case..." Waas took aim at Tycho.

"No!" Anna snapped. "We can all get along. It'll be okay. Nobody's going to shoot anybody for at least five more minutes."

"I hope you didn't mean that," Tycho said to the Queen. "That kind of hurt."

Elsa buried her face in her hands. "My God, men are so stupid."

"It's not stupidity," Waas said. "It's fatalism. Being flippant in the face of danger is how soldiers deal with their impending mortality."

"Thank you," Tycho said, sarcastically.

"Any time."

"I've got one question, though. Why Yngval? What part did he have to play in this?"

"He found out about... us..." Elsa said, glancing at her sister. "He promised to keep our secret, but he wasn't happy about it. He wanted us to repent and confess our sins."

"More importantly," Waas explained, "He couldn't tolerate the Draugr's Virgin Bride sitting on the throne of the most thoroughly Lutheran country in Scandinavia. Kept going on about Sami paganism and nonsense like that. The short version is, she's a witch and he wouldn't have it."

"You left him behind," Anna said. "Is he supposed to spin a story about what happened to us?"

"No, he's just insurance. If there is any unpleasantness, he will tell the whole world that the Arctic Witch of Arendelle also tastes her sister's honey pot. You won't have a throne to go back to."

"And I have no heir," Elsa observed.

"Of course. I'm sure they'll find some seneschal or delivery boy to install as King. I haven't the foggiest. I'm never going back. The past is in the past, as they say."

"And you, Henning?" Tycho asked. "Is this because I had you whipped?"

"No, sir. I been whipped plenty of times. Born troublemaker, I am. I just saw a chance to be somebody and I took it."

"Which reminds me," Waas said, before emptying his pistol into Henning's head. A lead ball, sixteen millimeters in diameter, penetrated the man's skull and sent him tumbling backwards into the arctic sea. Elsa cringed. Anna screamed. The gunshot was unbearably loud. The captives clutched their ringing ears.

Tycho just stared at the empty pistol.

He thought about it. But they were now within the shadow of the pirate ship's sails. It was a single-deck brig, about half the size of the _Isbre_. Tattered, patched sails snapped in the breeze. Some spars were missing their sails entirely. The paint was faded, deck rails splintered, and the hull encrusted with barnacles. It smelled of rotting wood and piss.

Atop the quarterdeck, one boot triumphantly on the railing, stood the Captain. Unlike his battered ship, he was resplendent in crimson and gold. A straight-bladed cavalry sword sat on his hip. He was tall, and dark, with black curls and a waxed moustache. And in place of his right hand, a gleaming silver hook.

"Meet our new friend," Waas said.

"Hook! Hook! Hook!" the pirates chanted, pumping their fists in the air.

"This should be fun," Anna muttered.

* * *

"Good morning my dear," Captain Jas Hook said, with a exaggeratedly deep bow. "And welcome to the _Jolly Roger_, formerly of His Majesty's service."

"Captain," the Queen said, giving him a half-assed curtsy.

"I'm ecstatic to meet you. I've heard ever so much about you." He stepped forward, leaning uncomfortably close. His breath stank of halitosis. A layer of foundation failed to conceal the pox scars on his cheeks. The Captain gently stroked his silver hook against Elsa's cheek. She visibly shivered at the touch. Anna gasped. "You are astonishingly beautiful. I see I was not misled. And who is this?"

"The Princess Anna," Waas explained. "And Tycho Halvdan, her bodyguard."

"He's just a soldier," Elsa said. "Send them both back to our ship. I'll go with you."

Hook took one long step, putting himself nose to nose with Tycho. The jaeger Kaptein glared back at him, defiant. The pirate lord picked at Tycho's gold sash with his hook, ripping the fabric.

"He's not just a soldier. This is an officer of the crown. A rifleman, if your uniform scheme is anything like the British."

"It is," Tycho said.

"We'll keep him for now. I have uses for him. And as for you..."

Hook stood at arm's length from Waas. With lightning speed, he freed his saber from its scabbard and plunged the tip into Waas' heart. The men let out a hearty cheer as the treasonous commodore stumbled back, clutching at his chest. Crimson gore practically fountained from the wound. Anna screamed again as he fell from the deck, plunging head-first into the brine.

"A ship cannot have two Captains," Hook said with a laugh.

He looked at the bloody smear staining the tip of his sword, and wiped it on Tycho's lapel.

"Where are you taking us?" Elsa asked.

"All in good time, my sweet. First, I have a little friend who requires your talents."

Captain Hook stepped aside, ushering the prisoners into his cabin. Much like the Captain himself, it stood in stark contrast to the rest of the rotting hulk. Every conceivable surface was draped in shades of crimson velvet and trimmed in gold. It was like stepping into a whole new world, rich and ostentatious, littered with plunder. Gold and jewels lay discarded in random heaps. Flies circled old meat. Weevils chewed stale bread. A round oak table dominated the center of the room. None of the captives asked why it was stained red.

A painted whore lay sprawled on his couch. She took a long drag off an opium pipe, and let the numbing smoke escape her lips. A ragged scar marred her cheek. No one doubted what implement made the wound.

Hook picked up a key and opened his chest. Inside, a tiny fairy sat atop a pile of half-melted ice. She was incredibly small and fragile. Draped in a sky blue dress, her elfin face was framed by stark white hair. Fractal snowflake patterns glittered when she weakly moved her wings. Elsa gasped and fell to her knees, picking up the tiny creature.

"This is Periwinkle," Hook explained. "I'm afraid the climate is a bit too much for her... I've had the hardest time keeping her cool, even in these polar longitudes."

Elsa gently blew on the fairy. Her breath was cold as an arctic wind. The chill seemed to revive the fairy. She batted her wings and smiled.

"She won't fly off," Hook continued. "She has nowhere to go, after all. I've learned, at some cost, that ice fairies cannot tolerate temperatures above freezing for more than few moments. I hope you'll be able to take care of her for me."

"Of course," Elsa said, clutching Periwinkle against her breast. "The poor thing."

"Take the others to the brig. I must talk to the Queen."

"No!" Anna shouted. A pirate seized her arm.

Tycho lunged forward. He clapped his hands around the pirate's ears and delivered a head-butt to the bridge of the nose. The pirate fell back, gingerly clutching the shattered bone while blood gushed from his nostrils.

"Leave her be," he demanded, an instant before a second pirate delivered a butt-stroke to the back of his head.

"That was stupid," Captain Hook observed. "And most impolite. Have him flogged."

* * *

It was dark when Tycho awoke. The world smelled of rotten wood, saltwater, and urine. His hands were clamped in chains. He tried to move, but crippling pain stung his spine. The flesh on his back was hot and raw. He could feel where his linen shirt had fused to his wounds, tearing open and bleeding anew every time he moved. It was intolerable. His whole world was pain.

"Don't move," Anna whispered, taking him in her arms.

"What happened?" Tycho asked. His mouth was dry as cotton.

"They whipped you until you passed out."

"I don't remember it."

"That's probably for the best."

For a moment he entertained the notion of passing out again, and hoping for sweet oblivion. Then, for the first time in hours, he felt warm. Over the stink of rot and brine, he smelled the intoxicating aroma of Anna's flesh. Good God, she smelled wonderful. He slowly, very slowly, turned and looked into her eyes.

"I said don't move."

He let his head rest against her chest.

"How many?"

"I don't know," Anna admitted. "I lost count. You screamed a little."

"I'm sorry."

He felt her shrug. "Let it go. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I let the Queen get captured. I let myself get flogged by pirates. I left my men adrift on a crippled hulk. I should just shoot myself."

"Pffft!" Anna hissed. "You're an idiot. Try to buy your way into high society... Go around acting macho and stuck up with your soldier friends... Worrying about your honor. I guarantee you, no one gives a damn about any of it."

"And you'd know?"

"Hey, look, I _am_ the high society around here. And trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. My first boyfriend tried to kill us, remember?"

"I wasn't around for that"

"It sucked."

"I'll bet."

"Maybe that's why I'm so in love... love-love, I mean... with Elsa," she admitted. "I spent years waiting for my life to begin, gave my heart away, and it all went to hell in less than a day. Sometimes I think Elsa's the only one that won't hurt me."

Anna dipped a rag into a bucket of unpleasantly brackish water. She let it drip across Tycho's lips. He drank it greedily. It tasted metallic and was unpleasantly cold, but he was so thirsty he would have eaten snow.

"They haven't fed us."

"You wouldn't want it anyway. You don't know how fast food goes bad on ship."

"I suppose. Would it sound bad if I said I wanted some chocolate?"

"No."

"Okay. I want some chocolate."

Tycho smiled, a little. Anna rested her hand on his face. For a moment, he almost fell asleep.

"You love my sister, don't you?"

The world suddenly clicked into sharp focus.

"I..."

"You are so obvious. You think you have a good poker face, but you wear your heart on your sleeve. You don't have a clue. If you even suspect she's unhappy, I can just see your heart sink. You're like, all, 'Please don't let her be mad at me,' and then when she really is mad at you, you get all pissy and sarcastic. It's hilarious to watch, really."

"I don't do that."

"Please. When I was little, I was so sheltered I started talking to the paintings. And even I can read you like a book."

"Does she know?"

"Elsa knows everything. She's probably going to freeze everyone in this boat and sail it back herself. I wouldn't put it past her. But yes, she knows."

"She doesn't love me."

"No," Anna said. "She doesn't. She loves me and I love her, the way a man loves a woman. Sometimes I wish I could marry her."

"I would marry her," Tycho said. "I'd pretend to be her husband. I would keep her secret."

"She'd call you the Prince Consort. You could run the place, and spend all day marching soldiers back and forth. And we would retire to an ice palace somewhere in the mountains, and visit the castle every now and then to keep up appearances."

"I would marry her," he repeated.

"But she'd never love you. That would be a cold and lonely life."

Tycho smiled. "And when you made love your ice palace would melt."

Anna slapped his bloody shoulder, and he cried out.

"Men and their filthy minds," she muttered. "I should make you go invade the Southern Isles. Then we'd all be happy."

* * *

The days passed slowly in the _Jolly Roger's_ brig. Tycho and Anna ate little, save fatty scraps of jerked beef and pieces of stale bread. They were thankful that it was too dark too see. Tycho suspected the bread was unpleasant shades of green. Water was cold but plentiful. On what they guessed to be the afternoon of the second day, a pirate appeared and placed a lantern on the other side of their cage. He also provided a canteen of gloriously fresh water.

"From 'Er Majesty," he grunted.

"Is it magic?" Anna asked.

"I haven't the foggiest," Tycho said, sipping it. "The rest of the ship's water is foul. I bet she's making all kinds of friends just conjuring up clean water for them to drink."

"Well, don't hog it all," she said. "We need some for your back."

Anna laboriously cleaned his wounds by candlelight. He hissed and winced when she pulled loose linen threads that had fused with his scabs. It stung. Badly. Like she was pulling string out of his spine.

"These are red and pussy. They're infected."

"Can you see muscle?"

"No."

"Then it's fine. Soldiers die of infection when they get gut-shot or need an amputation. I never heard of someone dying of a flogging."

"Well, it looks perfectly hideous," she said, dabbing at his back with a damp cloth.

"It feels perfectly hideous."

A moment of silence passed.

"Those men you had whipped... Elsa was upset because she thought it was her fault."

"It wasn't."

"I know that. But Elsa thinks everything is her fault. And if I hadn't been... with her... you'd never have started asking questions. She said we should be alone for the rest of the trip, but I wouldn't let her. So I guess it's all my fault."

Tycho took a deep breath. The movement made his ribs ache.

"I'd look at it this way," he said. "If I never found out, what would change? We'd still be in a pirate brig either way, right?"

"I suppose."

She squeezed the bloody rag, and then tried to drip some of the precious pure water on his back. There was none left.

"It looks like we're done," she said.

Another long pause.

"Thank you for being a gentleman."

"What do you mean?"

"I read books. A lot. This is the part where I play nurse and you act hurt but manly and then we kiss and stuff."

"I've heard I'm not your type."

Anna sighed. "You heard right."

They waited while hours passed. Tycho lay on his chest for a long time. When this became uncomfortable, he rolled onto his side. He watch the sun set through a crack in the wall. Guessing it was the port hull, the setting sun would have meant they were travelling north. North? What the hell was north of Arendelle? Besides ice and whales?

When the sun set and the cold crept in, they held each other for warmth.

And then they did kiss, just a little. Anna's lips were cold and chapped. But her tongue was warm, and it gave him an excited tingle he had never felt before.

"I'm not leaving Elsa for you," she whispered. "You're just Chocolate Guy."

And then they kissed again.

* * *

"Good lord this part is soooo boring!" Anna whined, thumping her head against the wall. "Please tell me this isn't what sea travel is about."

"Yep," Tycho said. "Pretty much."

"Why are they just leaving us down here?"

"Would you rather they tried having their way with you?"

"They won't. Elsa would frostbite their arms and legs off."

"And then who would run the boat?"

She sighed. "I thought about that. That's the only reason I can think of that she hasn't turned it into an ice cube already."

"I've been trying to work it out," Tycho said. He dipped his stale bread in water to soften it. "It's not just a matter of escaping... We'd need charts, someone to navigate... a way to avoid freezing to death. All those kinds of things."

"What if Elsa made us, like, a giant canopy... It would cover us up like a greenhouse."

"That would be something to see."

Anna tapped her toes together. "I feel like I've spent my whole life waiting for nothing. I bet you got to do cool stuff. Run around in the woods. Go hunting. Play with guns."

Tycho shrugged. "It was always about work. Never had a day off. My father was all about making money, trying to move up in the world. I did hunt, but sometimes I think I spent more time smithing guns than shooting them."

"Oh. That's good, I guess. I never realized how loud those things are. Did you have a lot of friends?"

"Not really."

"Was your Mom... around?"

"Yes, of course. But she worked, too. I guess it all paid off, in the end. They had a nice house. Got me an education."

"Paid for the joy of being a soldier."

"That, too."

"And then what?"

Tycho was quiet for a long moment. "I was an infantry officer for a while. I went down to Copenhagen after the British shot the place up. By the time I got there, they were gone. Stayed a while. Patched the place up. Came back to Arendelle."

"Became a spectator of royalty."

"That's not a bad way to put it. It's an honor to be a member of the Queen's Own Lifejaegercorps."

"And how's that working out for you?"

"I'm in a pirate ship with a princess and I have to close my eyes when she pees in a bucket."

"Sad."

He shrugged. "It's basically the most excitement I've had in my whole life."

"It was exciting for, like, the first five minutes. It got old fast. Hey, you hear that?"

"No. I'm half deaf from all the shooting. People sneak up on me all the time."

"The fairy!" Anna gasped and pointed.

"Shhh!" Tycho hissed.

Periwinkle appeared, clutching a slip of paper in her tiny arms.

"Ooh, ooh, what does it say?"

The fairy looked like she was talking, but the only sounds they could hear was a tinkling noise like the jingle of sleigh bells. She resorted to wild gesticulation, which did not clarify matters even a little bit. Anna took the note and crouched at the crack in the bulkhead. The pale gray sky provided just enough light to read by.

"All is well," she read, "Okay, I guess that's good. 'Going north. Landfall soon. I want to see where this all goes.' And... that's it."

"That's not helpful," Tycho said.

"Cut her some slack. Hey! Where'd the fairy go?"

Periwinkle had vanished as quickly as she appeared.

* * *

It was dawn on the fourth day when they made landfall. Tycho and Anna were finally set free, stumbling out of the brig and shielding their eyes from the light. It was stunningly bright... Not just from the clear sky but the vast, snow-covered mountains that reflected the sunlight. It was a terrible, piercing pain. The pirates went about with strips of thin gauze tied across their eyes to prevent snow-blindness. Anna and Tycho quickly followed suit. They also accepted the offer of thick winter coats.

Slowly making their way to the side of the boat, they looked down at sheets of bare ice. Captain Hook stood there, resplendent in his fur-lined finery. Next to him was Elsa, draped in frost-gossamer, the only one among them who did not shield her eyes. Periwinkle sat on Elsa's shoulder, finally at home in a climate that suited her. Anna quickly climbed down the rope ladder and ran to her sister. They embraced, and kissed passionately, ignoring the hoots and jeers of love-starved pirates.

Tycho was slower. He tried not to limp, but he feared a muscle in his back was not working right. A pirate gave him a shove with the muzzle of his gun, and he stumbled into the snow.

"On your feet, soldier!" Captain Hook called. "We've much to do today."

"Elsa," Anna asked breathlessly, "What is going on?"

"I'm fine, Anna. The Captain's been a gentleman. Mostly."

"Mine, too. Mostly."

Elsa took her sister's hand. "We'll have to walk a bit. I'll explain on that way."

So they marched, and Elsa talked the whole way.

They hiked up mountains that appeared on no map. This was the ancient cradle of the Vanir, a desolate and forbidden land where not even the Pagan Gods could survive. Time had little meaning here. The sun stopped and started of its own accord. Snow fell up, wind blew down, and ancient spirits played hooting ice-pipes long into the night to soothe the angry whales trapped beneath mile-deep sheets of ice. This was a place where Jotunn skalds went mad and vomited black mind-blood onto the snow.

At least, that was how Captain Hook described it.

He had taken the Queen into his confidence. He had come across ancient scrolls and hidden bits of wisdom while sailing the Neverland stars. Attempts to discover the land for himself had met with disaster... the _Jolly Roger_ had become locked in ice and the crew forced to winter in the arctic. She did not ask what they ate, out here in the bleak and desolate wilderness. When the summer thaw broke the ice and freed the ship, Hook attacked the problem with renewed vigor. Capturing a snow fairy had been the first step, and Periwinkle's talents had brought them to the great Gates of Skadi... but again they were repulsed, forced to turn back and flee the closing ice and mind-warping power of the land. It was then that Hook learned of Elsa's sorcery, and over the course of a year laid plans to kidnap her. Only her unique power could unlock the gates at the roof of the world.

"Well, frick," Anna said. "He could have just asked."

"Pirates don't ask," Tycho replied. "In all probability you'll say, 'No.'"

"Okay, great, so now that we're out here just blast everybody with your ice powers."

"Think twice child," Captain Hook chided. "I remember somebody left a boat adrift in the Norwegian Sea, packed full of people who could surely use your help getting home."

"And what is out here that you're looking for?" Anna asked.

"I'm keeping that to myself," the Captain said with a smile.

Periwinkle took flight, wagging her finger at the pirate while berating him with her musical voice. No one had the slightest idea what she meant to say, except perhaps Hook himself.

"All you need to know," he said, waving away the fairy, "Is that I am obsessed with the secrets of this place."

Tycho spoke next. "I imagine obsession is a prerequisite for a pirate."

The man behind made ready to strike him, but Hook held up a hand. "No need for that."

"Tycho," Elsa said, running her fingers through her hair, "Please don't antagonize them. I want to see this place as much as he does. It calls to me. Maybe I can come to understand... myself."

At that moment, they heard a great, distant cry. It was the sound of a titanic whale, calling out its mournful ocean-song. The ice quaked and split beneath their feet. Jagged lightning-bolt cracks shot through the glassy surface. A fierce wind blew diamond dust in their faces. Off in the distance, perhaps a mile away, a giant spiral tusk split the ice. It was a narwhal, huge beyond all reckoning, a leviathan of Biblical proportions. The beast let out another ear-splitting cry. A block of ice the size of a warship tumbled down the mountainside and shattered.

The group stood amazed, princesses and pirates alike, glancing at each other in disbelief. Only Hook himself did not appear perturbed.

"That's a whelp," he said with a sneer, and carried on.

* * *

"Frick!" Anna shouted, pointing at the snow.

A blackened foot stuck out of a snow bank in a completely ludicrous manner.

They had hiked for most of the day, deep into the heart of the forbidden mountains. The ice was split here and there into great chasms where liquid brine flowed in torrential rivers. It was a place of hyperbolic scale, unspeakably ancient and achingly quiet. Up to this point, Elsa had permitted them to cross every chasm with ease by sculpting ice bridges out of will alone.

"Ah, yes," Hook said, poking the foot with his sword. "That would be Mister Hackworth. A cooper, I believe. Formerly of York."

"Do we even want to know what happened here?" Elsa asked.

"He fell behind."

"And?"

"And what?" the Captain said with a shrug, and continued his march.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when they stood before the Gates of Skadi. The sun threatened to sink behind the mountaintops, plunging the arctic world into darkness. The saving grace was that the deep shadows thrown across the ice were dim enough that they could unveil their eyes without risking blindness. The scale of the gate was immense... fully five stories tall, an astonishing edifice of steel and obsidian. Every surface seemed to be wrought of black glass, and practically every inch was covered in graven runes and the alphabets of tongues predating Man. Before the gate lay a small pool of liquid water. The surface was clear as glass, but rose and fell with a slow rhythm, like the breath of a slumbering God. Somewhere in the mountaintops the wind carried the music of Jotunn flutes.

"We have arrived," the Captain declared.

A dozen exhausted pirates dropped their camping gear to the ground. Tycho himself was defeated. He had walked for hours across every imaginable type of snow. He had seen everything from dancing ribbons of snow-dust caught in the wind, to heavy, wet snow pack that sank him up to his knees. Halfway through the march he had begun to sweat and opened his coat. Every piece of exposed skin was tender and raw. Worst of all, his wounded back stung bitterly as every step seemed to tear open a half-healed cut. He looked at Anna and saw that she was faring only marginally better. Her cheeks were red and sun burnt. A bead of sweat froze on her nose.

"What is all this?" Elsa asked, touching a rune-stone.

"That, my sweet, are warnings carved in every language known to man and many that are not."

"It hurts my eyes to look at it. It's dizzying."

"Indeed. But now it is time for you to do your part." He pointed to the pool of water. "That there pond is at least a hundred meters deep. And seawater is colder than pure ice. At the bottom of this pool is a key... or so Periwinkle informs me. You will retrieve it for me."

"She's not a fish," Tycho snapped, still trying to catch his breath. A pirate slapped a pole across his wounded back. The soldier gasped and stumbled, but did not fall.

"It's alright," Elsa said. She stepped forward, staring into the dark and briny deep. Something in the darkness moved. Biting her lip, The Mistress of Wind and Sky stepped out of her transparent shoes and touched one bare toe to the surface of the water. A snowflake pattern instantly erupted in every direction, freezing solid beneath her feet. Clean lines appeared in the surface of the ice, cutting the pool apart like slices of a pie. One by one, they descended to create a spiral staircase down into the deep parts of the world.

Elsa descended into the arctic Sheol, and did not emerge for a long, uncertain time.

The world was quiet and still, save the howling music of distant sky-spirits and the babbling water in the chasm behind them.

"Say something," Anna said, finding a seat on the snow next to Tycho. "I'm giving up here."

"You want a deep thought or a shallow one?"

"Shallow, please."

"I'd like some of that chocolate now."

"Yeah," she said, pulling her legs against her chest and resting her chin on her knees. "Me too."

The fairy Periwinkle danced in the air, made a jingling-bell sound, and sat in the snow between them.

"I agree," Tycho said, even though he didn't comprehend her in the slightest.

Anna sighed.

Time passed. Tycho started to shiver.

"Okay, I give," Anna said, buttoning his coat for him. "I want a deep thought."

"I was thinking about something Yngval said."

"Yngval. What an ass."

"How did he find your... secret... anyway?"

"I don't even know. I suspect he was wound up about Elsa being, you know, the Snow Queen and all that, he must have followed her around looking for more 'dirt.'"

"Someone cloistered away her whole life can't have that many secrets," Tycho said.

"No," Anna admitted, and bit her lip. "But one was enough."

Periwinkle looked up at her, confused.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "But go ahead, tell me what you were thinking."

"I was thinking Elsa doesn't need anyone to take care of her. The whole idea of trying to guard someone like that is a joke. I'm wasting my life in Arendelle."

"Well, that's good. We were going to send you to Greenland, anyway. Or the New World... Ooh! We could exile you to Canada! That would be fun!"

Tycho shrugged, but the pain in his back made him immediately regret it. "Maybe I could do something meaningful there," he said. "Lots of people are starting over in the Americas."

Anna groaned and hid her face. "Frick... Men are so stupid. Stop talking about wanting to _do _something! Stop living and dying over what frickin Elsa thinks of you! You are locked in this little box where there are like two jobs and one woman in the whole world, and when it doesn't work out the way you wanted, you don't know what you do with yourself! Let it go for fuck's sake!"

Periwinkle gave her a sour look.

"Yes, I said a bad word! Hey! Pirates! Look at this! I said a bad word and now the fucking fairy's judging me! Jesus Fairy Fucking Christ!"

"Madame," Captain Hook said, "You are being unseemly."

"Okay, cool, now the fucking pirate judges me! That's another thing! You're supposed to be a badass soldier guy, so when are you going to get around to killing the fucking pirates?"

"Seize her," the Captain muttered.

Three pirates lunged at the Princess, gripping her coat. She kicked and struggled, bit and screamed. Suddenly, there was a shout. Tycho crossed the snow in a single dark blur of motion. He took a pistol from a pirate's belt, cocked the flint, and proceeded to lodge a ball in the man's skull. The surviving two leapt backwards in alarm, only to find their own guns missing. Tycho now clutched a pistol in each hand, leveled at their faces. The empty lay in the snow at his feet. Anna had barely seen him move.

"Anna, darling," he said.

"Um, yeah?"

"Please cock these for me."

"Oh, right." She quickly cocked the flint on one pistol, then the other.

"For the love of Christ," Captain Hook raged. "He's only got two balls. Shoot him!"

The remaining pirates, reduced now to eleven, glanced at each other. They could easily kill him, collectively, but no single one wanted to be the first to cock their gun and die.

That is when Hook drew his pistol.

Tycho turned and fired.

Captain Hook fell to his knees. For a long moment, the world was still. The pirate coughed. Then he slowly looked up, smiled, and discharged his own pistol.

Anna screamed.

Tycho heard a wet slap, and stupidly looked down. Crimson gore erupted from his leg. Gripping the wound with one hand, clutching the pistol with the other, he stumbled backwards and fell into a dark, wet chasm of ice and snow and madness.

* * *

Kaptein Tycho Halvdan, of the Queen's Own Lifejaegercorps, knew he was about to die. The arctic water was shocking. It stole his breath, made him gasp. He struggled to keep his head above water as the river carried him down tunnels of ice. He kept a death grip on the pistol, if for no other reason than he had to hold onto _something_. The world was a rush of green and blue and white. At some point he struck his head, and the whole mess went purple.

Darkness.

Flashes of light.

Boats.

Hallucinatory sounds.

Elsa, The Queen of Diamonds, an idea he worshipped from a distance.

Anna, The Queen of Hearts, who he genuinely loved.

Gunshots and screaming and madness.

A vertical drop, into the ocean.

Tycho was floating in a dark, cold world. He opened his eyes. He was underwater, staring at a green sea beneath a crust of ice. A leviathan narwhal, a full kilometer long, sang a lonely song. Pachydermic jellyfish drifted lazily in the labyrinth of undersea ice, dreaming incestuous dreams. It all smelled of blood and salt.

So this is death.

Another sudden burst of light pierced the darkness. Periwinkle, the frost fairy, plunged into the deep darkness. She fell like a comet streaking through the night. The tiny creature stopped just inches in front of Tycho's face, and emphatically pointed upwards.

Periwinkle, he thought as his brain began to shut down.

Even the fucking fairy judges you.

And somewhere, deep inside, he found the strength to kick.

* * *

Air!

Tycho crawled out of the sea, pulling himself onto a slab of ice. His left hand still clutched the pistol. His right froze to the ice. He pulled with all his strength, dragging himself out of the water. For a brief moment he allowed himself to fall to the ground and stare at the thin ribbon of sky above. Tycho lay at the bottom of a chasm, somewhere deep in grip of ancient Gods. Rocks and jagged ice dug into his raw back. For a instant, he almost quit right there, but Periwinkle slapped him as hard as she could.

"Why'd I bring this dumb thing?" he mumbled to himself, staring blankly at the pistol in his hand. The powder was ruined. He would need a worm-screw to pull the ball and start over.

The flint!

Tycho rolled over and climbed to his feet. The precious flint was still locked in place!

He quickly shed his clothing. In the extreme cold, it was better to be naked and dry than stay trapped in wet clothes. Tying a scrap of cloth around his wound, Tycho looked for something to burn. Periwinkle pointed the way, leading him down a frozen tunnel deeper into the dark. He was shivering. His jaw chattered out of control. His feet had long gone numb. Still, he limped on.

Cold.

Cold cold cold cold coldcoldcold.

The fairy's musical jingle beckoned him out onto a rocky shoal. Naked and freezing, he crawled across broken stone and jagged rock, only to find himself staring at dried scraps of seaweed. Quickly assembling them into a pile, Tycho worked the flintlock's hammer, spraying sparks off the frizzen into the kindling. A spark caught, and he carefully tended it to produce a small flame.

"I need wood," he mumbled dumbly. He could practically feel parts of his mind dozing off. Periwinkle pointed the way again. He followed her around a large stone and saw the rotting carcass of a seal.

Seal blubber!

It may have been rotten, and it was certainly foul, but it was fuel nonetheless. Within a few minutes, Tycho huddled in front of a small fire. The blubber put off a wretched, oily smoke. He didn't care. It was heat. He was alive. When the flame began to die, he placed the hot stones inside his wet clothing and clung to it. His feet were still numb, and his boots were still wet, but he was alive. The soldier passed an hour in this fashion... lying in a fetal ball while clutching a sack of warm rocks to his chest. When the linen shirt was dry enough, he anxiously pulled it on. The pants were soggy, but acceptable. Boots still soaked. He wondered if the carcass would have enough blubber left to dry them, and the coat as well.

The sun had set.

"Periwinkle?" he asked.

A jingle told him she was close. Picking himself up, walking on damp boots, he followed the sound down the coast. Standing on a rock, he watched the red sun sink below the horizon. To the south and west, a dark and empty plain. To the north and east, terrible cyclopean mountains.

And so Tycho Halvdan did the one thing he could do better than anything else, and marched.

He followed the twinkling white fairy light, over snowdrifts and rocky shores. He walked to keep warm, hiding under his damp coat when the wind picked up. Finally, when he could march no more, he dug a niche inside of a snow bank and crawled inside. The coat, long since frozen through, sheltered him from the wind and trapped what little body heat he had left.

Periwinkle found him hiding in the dark. She examined his feet, and pointed angrily at his bruised, waxy toes. Holding his knees against his chest, Tycho gripped his feet with his bare hands. It was stupid. The damn things were probably going to fall off, and he was going to spend his life hobbling about like a cripple. Shame.

* * *

"You in there, son?" a voice asked.

Tycho awoke with a start, kicking and tossing about. Crawling out of his damp shelter, balancing on frostbitten toes, he found himself staring at a bonfire. To the east, a dim morning light crept over the mountaintops. His visitor was a brusque old man draped in sealskin. He prodded the fire with a walking stick and smiled.

"This is a dream," Tycho said.

"A dream?" the visitor scoffed. "Sit down, and see what a dream it is. But not too close. Your tootsies might burn clean off and you'd never feel it. Come to think of it, you might be better off just walking around on them, frozen, than trying to thaw them out now. You still have a lot of work to do."

"Who are you?" he asked, staggering towards the fire.

"I am Freyr of the Vanir."

"Impossible."

"'Impossible,' he says!" The man chuckled for quite some time. "Impossible... Son, you are standing on a mountain that doesn't exist and floats on nothing but sea ice. You've been shot in the leg by a hundred-year-old pirate, you're at the mercy of a fairy, and now you're thinking about chasing the Snow Queen through the Gates of Skadi. Does that about cover it? Or did I miss something?"

Tycho thought about it.

"I'm in love with two sisters and they don't love me back because they're already in love with each other."

"That," Freyr of the Vanir said, "Is some outrageous bullshit right there."

Tycho picked up a stick and held his boots close to the fire. The Old God threw him a small lump of unpleasantness. More seal blubber.

"Rub it on your boots before the leather splits."

He did as he was told, and asked, "Where did Periwinkle go?"

"Oh, I suppose she's somewhere nearby. Frost fairies historically don't do well in the heat."

Finally letting himself relax, the soldier lay back on his damp coat and basked in the warm glow. A painful tingle in toes reminded him not to let them thaw, and he reoriented himself. Realizing he was still clutching the useless pistol, he removed the flint and pocketed it.

"You don't have any dry powder do you?"

"Afraid not."

"So... I'm sorry, but why are you here? Now?"

"I've always been here. I was here before the old men tore down our idols and took up the cross. I suppose I'll be here for many years to come. I misplaced a magic sword some time back, and I expect I'll be needing it sooner or later. If you come across it, let me know."

"Right, but... why are you here, helping me?"

The Old God grinned, revealing a rotten, toothless smile. "You don't pay much attention, do you? The Fates always intervene in matters of true love."

"True love? Really?"

"Not _your_ true love!" Freyr barked, poking him with his stick. "Theirs. The girls. You die cold and alone."

"Uh huh."

"Okay, that last part I was just screwing with you."

"Right."

"Lighten up, boy. Let it go."

A thought suddenly struck Tycho, and he abruptly sat up. "Why do people keep saying that? I feel like I've heard it a dozen times in the last week."

"Oh, it's a song Elsa sang to herself when she ran away from home."

"Ah," Tycho said. "I wasn't there for that."

"But where was I? That's right, the girls. Look, we... and by that I mean, creatures of myth and magic... We get involved whenever we feel the need. Every time a woman's tears bring her true love back to life, or a beast turns into a prince, you're seeing the will of Gods at work. Now, I could have let you stumble around in the cold until your feet fell off, but I figure anyone man enough to drag himself out of an icy tomb and pull through is one hard son of a bitch."

He paused to poke the fire.

"Even if you did get some help from a twinkly fucking fairy."

"And you thought I was worth saving?"

"Stow that. You saved yourself. You would have pulled through. You'd be frozen and miserable and no good to anyone, but you might have found your way back to the boat. I'm just giving you nudge. Your boots are dry. Poof. Magic. Now put them on and go put some rounds down range. Maybe you'll live through this."

"And if we don't?"

Freyr spat. "If you don't, you get to look forward to an eternity of beer, bacon, and battle in the company of warrior Gods! Valkyries! All that good stuff! Why do you think the Vikings kicked so much ass? They were thinking about Aesir titties the whole time! Why in all hell would you want to know how a battle turns out before it begins?"

The Old God vanished, and his fire with him.

For a moment, Tycho stared at the spot. It was all gone, as though it had never been at all.

And at the moment, for the first time, Tycho became aware at the dull throb in his leg. His entire thigh was painfully swollen. The bandage was uncomfortably tight. Rolling onto his back, Tycho untied it. The wound was red and puffy. It wept clear pus.

"Periwinkle?" he called.

The fairy twinkled in the morning light.

"Am I feverish?"

She touched his brow with a miniature hand, and shook her head.

"And I didn't hallucinate?"

Another shake, no.

"Unreal," he muttered, tearing a fresh strip of cloth and re-binding his wound.

Picking up the pistol, and pulling on his damp boots, Tycho Halvdan began the long walk to the Gates of Skadi.

* * *

It was noon when he fell on the gates. Trembling and shivering, Tycho fell on the frozen corpse of the pirate he had killed the night before. He quickly stripped the dead man and added layers to his clothes. They had left his pack behind... probably intending to recover it on the return trip. Tycho found no food, but he did recover new gloves, rope, and a flask of precious rum. He took a sip for himself and poured the remainder on his wound. It stung bitterly, but the pain could hardly be worse than the persistent throbbing ache that tortured him. Knowing better than to attempt eating snow, he packed some in the flask and tucked it in his pocket to melt. There were no cartridges. He was disappointed, but not terribly so. Try as he might, he could conceive of no good way to extract the unspent ball from the pistol's bore.

Having met his needs, Tycho looked up at the gates themselves. The cyclopean doors were cracked, perhaps only six inches wide. A tiny piece of scrimshaw served as the key. Was this what Elsa had retrieved from the deep darkness? He did not know. Nor could he fathom what ancient magic had moved the gates for them. On the ground before him lay a dark puddle of ichor in some inhuman color. Small drips here and there followed the path of footprints in the snow. Another mystery.

Periwinkle pointed at the stains, and made a "Hook" gesture with her finger.

Even the bastard's blood ran black.

Tenderly squeezing through the gates, Tycho looked down a craggy mountain draw. Dead trees curled and twisted like witches' fingers reaching to the pale gray sky. Rocks and boulders defiantly pushed through the layers of ice and snow. The path sloped down, at times terminating in treacherous drops. For the first time in a terribly long time, Tycho Halvdan smiled.

This was where he was meant to be. The jaeger was an alpine specialist. The open sea was the world of pirates and sailors and whatever other cursed things bobbed and floated and swam. But here he was the hunter.

Tycho stalked his prey like a shadow in a storm. He moved from tree to tree, shielding himself from the wind and eyes of vengeful ghosts. Boulders and depressions strained his leg, but he did not let it stop him. Time was the enemy here. He expected his prey was some eight hours ahead of him. If fate was kind, the black night would have slowed them down... Or perhaps Captain Hook's wound sapped his strength as much as Tycho's. But he did not believe fate was kind.

Anna was kind.

Fate was not.

And neither was he.

* * *

After the first hour, his back began to ache. In the second hour, his shoulders cramped. The water in the flask was bitter and cold. In the third hour, he came a upon the black remains of a fire. Sparing only a few seconds to examine a dark and blood-soaked bandage, he was off again on a sort of skipping, uneven jog. He gasped the frosty arctic air. He began to sweat. He believed with great certainty that his toes were separating from his swollen, blistered feet. But he would not stop. All the giants in Jotunnheim would not stop him now.

The pirate guard was not accustomed to the cold. Tycho knew this, because he hid in the lee of a boulder to shelter himself from the wind. Those were the men who lost their feet at night. A wise soldier would march their post from flank to flank... keep the feet moving... But this one was cold and hungry and complacent. Easy prey for the hunter.

Tycho dropped a stone on his head. The pirate fell, dropping his rifle in the snow. His skull was no longer completely round. Still, he moaned, and reached for the sky. Tycho beat him to death with the butt of his pistol. There was an unpleasant moment when the man winced and twitched and spat teeth. Then his eyes were open and his soul was gone.

Take the rifle. Check the flint. Check the pan. Move.

The second pirate was harder... A big, dark man with tattoos that spoke of depraved Polynesian rites. But he was not a child of the Aesir nor the Vanir. Tycho waited for a blast of windblown snow to blind him. Then he rushed across open ground, limping, stumbling, falling, and rising again. At the last moment, the pirate saw him. Spun. Drew his pistol. Squeezed the trigger.

Tycho seized the gun. The flint bit down on his hand. It cut him to the bone. He wanted to scream. His blood dripped on the snow. The pirate twisted the gun, and with it, Tycho's trapped hand. He fell to the ground, then kicked the pirate's knee until it bent a direction nature never intended. The pirate cried out and fell. Tycho rolled on top of him in an instant, throwing a handful of dusty snow in his eyes. Then he punched the larger man in the throat. Seven or eight times.

Periwinkle. His Northern Star. She danced in the wind, a sparkling light in a diamond world. He left another corpse in the snow, and followed where she led.

* * *

It was noon, and Captain Hook stood before the object of his quest.

They were in an amphitheater of black volcanic glass. A snake made of dead men's fingernails crawled across his boots. Crows of epic proportions circled overhead. As did other, darker, less readily understood creatures of the polar night.

"Is this it?" Elsa asked, struggling to be heard over the howling wind.

"I should hope so," the Captain said, weakly. He walked with his one remaining hand tucked in his coat. Putting pressure on his wound.

They stood before a transparent cube. Hook, Elsa, Anna, and the nine remaining pirates. Of them all, only Elsa stood erect, defying the growing storm. Anna shivered bitterly. Her face was red and burned.

Tycho watched from a vantage point, staring through the sights of his captured musket. He was beginning to shiver, too, even under the layers of pirate rags. Every surface of his body was crusted with snow. He had not felt sensation in his feet since last night. For the first time, he entertained the notion that he would not have enough strength to return to the ship.

"Now Madame," the pirate lord said, gesturing with his hook. "If you would..."

"I don't know what that is," Elsa replied, staring at the object. She took a step forward, and stopped. "Anna..."

Hook seized the shivering girl, digging his terrible claw into her neck.

"Don't!" Elsa cried.

The winds howled in rage and frustration.

Tycho shouldered his weapon.

Elsa looked back to the cube. Her braid snapped in the gale. She crossed the open yard. Her feet did not leave the slightest impression in the snow.

"Open the gate!" Hook shouted.

"Elsa..." Anna pleaded, reaching out to her lover.

"It's ice," Elsa said. "The densest ice I've ever seen. Its structure doesn't make any sense. I can see fractals here with unreal edges... crystals compounded on top of each other at impossible angles."

"Just open the bloody thing!" Hook raged.

Tycho took up the trigger.

Periwinkle cringed.

The Snow Queen reached out, and touched it.

Light poured forth from the object. Unseen monsters screamed and chanted. Deep in the earth a Jotunn giant beat a great and terrible drum. It pulsed with the heartbeat of a whale. Elsa turned back, and shouted something. No one could hear what she said. Sleet and hail rushed past her as the Gate consumed the arctic world.

Tycho exhaled.

Captain Hook gasped, and pulled Anna to her feet.

Squeeze.

The pirates collectively jumped at the thunderclap of exploding powder. They turned and spun and scattered. One fired his weapon ineffectually into the air. Elsa ran across the yard, meeting Anna in her arms.

Captain Hook stumbled. Black bile escaped the hole in his throat. He gasped, coughed up a wad of vile ichor... and died in the snow.

"Come on!" Elsa screamed, dragging Anna with her.

Towards the Gate.

Tycho stumbled down the cliff side, dropping the musket and ignoring the fleeing pirates. He stumbled in the snow, pulled himself up, and limped after them. The swirling wind practically carried him towards the Gate.

"Stop! Wait!" Anna gasped, stepping back. "What is it?"

They stared into a glowing tesseract... a cube made of cubes bounded by cubes, all connected by impossible edges and angles. It existed in more than three dimensions. Time and space were frozen there, folded up and crystallized. It flashed and flickered with colors never seen by mortal eyes. It was light and sound and chaos... until Elsa touched it again.

"Don't!" Tycho cried out.

The Gate of Skadi twisted and opened. And in it they saw infinity. There was Arendelle, the ballroom and the tower, the _Isbre_ and the _Jolly Roger. _There, now, was Prussia and Copenhagen and epic ice-cliffed fjords.

"It's... everything..." Elsa said, staring into the light. "Everything and everywhere."

And so it was. They stood before the world. Not just the world, but multiple worlds. Whole universes opened up to them, everything from Hyperborea to Antares. Fairies danced in the morning light. Great Cthulhu lay dead but dreaming beneath the waves. The world's greatest poet was born in France. War broke out in Vietnam. A sentient living sun blasphemously declared itself to be God. Henry Tudor's second wife lost her head. A black tower stood at the nexus of all worlds.

"Anna!" Elsa said, offering her hand. "We can start over! We can go anywhere... be anything! We... we can be together forever!"

"I'm scared, Elsa!"

"It's okay," she said, taking her sister's hand and kissing her. "We'll be okay. Just think of where you want to be. There's a world for us somewhere."

The Queen of Diamonds turned towards the Gate.

"Anna!" Tycho shouted, reaching out to her.

The Queen of Hearts looked over her shoulder.

"Anna..." he gasped, "Please..."

Anna joined her sister in the light.

And Tycho fell to his knees.

They were gone.

Together.

* * *

For a long moment there was no sound but the howling of the wind.

Tycho fell forward into the snow. He was spent. Drained of adrenaline, he slowly, painfully, rolled onto his aching back and stared at the stormy sky. Somewhere, the Pagan Gods laughed. What man was this that thought he could challenge the Snow Queen?

Every conceivable bone in his body ached.

He wanted to die.

Almost.

The musical sound of Periwinkle twinkled in his hear. The fairy leapt in front of his face, tugging on his hair. She was the obstinate little thing he had ever seen. She wouldn't let him give up. Never, ever, ever.

"Go on," Tycho said, climbing to his feet. "Go home. I'll be alright."

Periwinkle made an angry face.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm coming."

He took a deep breath.

"I'm my own man."

The fairy gave him one last fretting look, and flew into the light.

* * *

He stood in front of the Gate, a man alone at the top of the world.

He was Tycho Halvdan.

He had no name, or rank, or title. He had no woman. He had no food. And his last friend in the world had gone... to wherever fairies came from.

He didn't know.

But he was Tycho Halvdan, and he was his own master.

The Gate showed him everything at once.

Sandworms plying planetary oceans of sand. Greeks setting sail from Ithaca. Pilgrims trading tales on the road to Canterbury. The Battle of Wolf 359. The Gate might even show him where Elsa and Anna had gone, that he might follow them.

No, he thought. He would not do that. He would choose his own life.

* * *

**Epilogue**

In the year 1809, Arendelle mourned their Queen and Princess, lost to pirates at sea. With no clear successor, it eventually joined the combined Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway under Frederick VI. This arrangement was short-lived, but Arendelle remained a part of Norway, after Norway declared its independence in 1814.

The Snow Queen passed into myth. When the Norwegian state churches took power, her witchcraft was vilified. Most people forgot that one brief shining moment when she and her sister-bride were the light of the Northern world.

It was late at night in the Norwegian province of Arendelle. The Canon priest Yngval of Danel drank bitter wine in a dark room. Rain fell outside his window, and lightning crashed, but he paid it little mind. Instead, he lit a candle and took up his quill. Yngval of Danel was writing his memoirs. He wrote with a fever, expelling the words onto the page as fast as his fingers could move. He took particular joy in the passage he now described, an adventure of his in which he engineered the doom of a white-haired witch and her incestuous sister-bride. It was true that they had floated about a bit, and many men were captured by the British when their wreck of a boat drifted too far south. But the past was in the past. And now he looked back on the whole matter with a sort of malevolent glee.

He hoped his scrawling penmanship did not betray too much enthusiasm.

The floorboards creaked behind him.

"Who calls?" he asked the darkness. "Everyone has gone home for the night."

He held up the candle, and gasped.

A man stood before him. Dressed in rags and tatters, crusted with snow and frost. One leg was bandaged and stained with blood. The intruder's skin was red and raw. He smelled of old meat and gunpowder. In his hand, he clutched an ornate straight-bladed sword.

"I know you," Yngval cried, pointing. "You... you..."

"I want to know," the man said in a hoarse voice. "Was it you, or Waas that started it all?"

The priest stepped back. Took a deep breath. Composed himself.

"Tycho Halvdan. Late of Her Majesty's Own Jaegers."

"Close enough," Tycho said.

"You're going to kill me."

"That's right. But I want to know who started it. Was it you or Waas."

Yngval of Danel thought about this for a moment. He picked up his wine, sipped it, and made the decision that he would die with dignity.

"It was me. I could not tolerate a witch on the throne. Even less so, when I discovered her perversion."

"And then?"

"I wanted her gone. But I could not implicate myself. I discovered a certain pirate was asking questions. Brought Flagkommander Waas into my confidence. Told him King Frederick would make him a Duke, after he annexed Arendelle. He conveniently knew where to find treacherous rocks to smash the boat against… and I arranged the rendezvous with the pirate. I'm sorry you got involved. I tried to warn you."

Tycho reached out, and snuffed the candle.

"Tell me, sir," Yngval continued, "Which one of them did you love, in the end?"

"Anna. In the end."

Yngval nodded. "Alright. Get on with it, then."

Tycho drove the sword into his gut. The priest fell back, clutching his wound. He knocked over a table. Spilled wine on the floor. Grasped at his chest. The blade had split his diaphragm. He could not breathe.

Tycho Halvdan watched him suffocate there, in the dark. Then he dropped the sword, sat in the late Yngval's chair, and let polar ice melt off his body.

He had nothing and no one. But he had chosen revenge, and it pleased him.

* * *

**END**

_The story continues in 'A Broken Mirror World,' followed by 'The Infinite Prison' and 'The Ravens of Asgard.'_


End file.
